Image is of the Cuban flag and the Pride flag on the Havana Health Ministry building.
Inspired by a highly upvoted recommendation by @Commiejones@hexbear.net:
We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn't very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying.
The News Megathread is now under trans martial law:
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Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory.
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Posting about the "comment wars" between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis!
The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you've wanted to talk about the chemical or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Chemicals of the Week are Estrogen and Testosterone! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
so tired of british "lefties" saying that the uk government is "owned" by israel or similar. just a complete lack of thought that maybe britain's role as america's lapdog means that we're not going to do anything to meaningfully harm the usa's number one airbase (with country attached).
It's the same here in the US. It's legitimately anti-semitic. They basically argue that politicians are hypnotized by zionist money, when really Western politicians (and their supporters) are just fucking racist. Israel doesn't create these people, it finds them. They already exist in the first place.
I think there is a base of truth somewhere but when it is spun out of proportions to claim that the zionists owns or controlled western states it looks a lot like classic antisemitic conspiracies.
There is a lot of well-connected lobby money behind Zionism, especially in the US. If somebody becomes too prominent with anti-zionist views they can expect an outsized response from zionist lobby groups and agents. Somebody pays to primary pro-Palestinian candidates, somebody pays to flood the English-speaking internet with Hasbara filth, etc.
As an individual you can face nasty reprisals if you speak up against genocide and apartheid. This doesn't change the material relationship between the illegal zionist entity and the west however. Western states could get by just fine without the illegal zionist entity but without western military, financial and political support the illegal zionist entity would collapse within months. Is someone controls somebody else it's the other way around, the illegal zionist entity is a vassal or an outpost of western imperialism. If the US regime wanted to, they could make them stop the genocide by making a sternly voiced phone call. No zionist holds that amount of power over the US.
The zionist lobby is not the zionists controlling the west, it is the zionists maintaining good relations with and campaigning for the favour of their overlords.
I think viewing it as the zionist lobby is part of the issue. Focusing on zionism obscures Israel's role as a vital laboratory for the MIC and it's role as a colonial fortress in the middle east. The members of the israel lobby and their allies are zionists, but the materialist reason for zionist support in the us is the us arms industry, imperialism, and geopolitical force projection. Idk how to best phrase it. Something like the the israeli lobby is zionist because of israel's role in the mic, rather than the mic itself being zionist? Idk. It's a base/superstructure thing but idk how to phrase it.
I don't think it's necessarily antisemitic, it's the same portrayal as for all US client states and the US promotes and leans into it
Why is it anti semitic? Simply saying that politicians love aipac money more than serving their domestic population is just a matter of fact.
Not to do a whataburger (that autocorrected but I like it) but there are lobbies fucking up our lives in all sorts of ways, and the defense lobbies are bigger than AIPAC, which is basically just a tertiary to defense. And that's just contributions. These people's stock portfolios jump by leaps and bounds as they deregulate everything that's the biggest corruption of all.
This. AIPAC is another military industrial complex lobby. If Israel hadn't been formed then the US would have another powerful and influential lobby for another middle eastern outpost. AIPAC exists because it's a useful tool for western imperialism.
I'd say it's because the money is more of a bonus
The real purpose is ensuring American dominance,so Israel is in no way different than an extension of the US
Less like a brain parasite highjacking a body,more like a tumor metastasizing
It's based around the nonsensical idea the reason for their support is only because of lobbying money, and that without it, their support would disappear. Support of zionist imperialism entirely predates the creation of a strong zionist lobby, both in the US and in the UK. AIPAC and company amplify what is already present, they don't create it out of nothing. Western politicians support racist, imperialist projects around the globe that have far weaker and less cash rich lobbies than Israel.
It’s antisemitic because it is an inversion of reality where, instead of seeing “Israel” as a major tool of US/UK imperialism and that’s why their predominantly Christian people fully support and fund (and arm) it, they cast the imperial powers as being controlled by the so-called “Jewish State” playing into the antisemitic trope of Jews controlling the world. It’s also counterproductive for “leftists” to shift the blame away from the governments of the US/UK (and others) to their client state.
People go much further than saying the israeli lobby is influential. It's often phrase as Israel or AIPAC actually having control over other governments.
I think this misses the point.
However it is a pretty controversal conversation to have and I'm not sure now is the time for opening it
It's incredible to hear so many otherwise normal people going "dae protocols of the elders of zion?". Idk if it's just straight ignorance of how much foreign money pours in to congress, mindless regurjitation of things they hear on the news, or active anti-semitic belief but it's absurd on it's face. Israel is deeply integrated in to the us mic, it's a vital colonial bulwark. The us doesn't " support" israel, they're all part of the same system. It's just absurd.
It's more like the UK is owned by the city of London aka the banks and people know less about the history of banking than they do the history of policing.
Probably gonna butcher what Max Ajl said about this in his two-part article, but the whole magnification of the "Israel lobby" not only serves to obscure the role of American imperialism. It's also a way to absolve UAE and the gulf state's role, right? Which is why Al-Jazeera produced that documentary...
That is a point i had not considered. What's good for israel is good for Saudi and the gulf arab states. It's easy to forget that at a government level all of the arab states have despised the Palestinians for decades and done little to aid them.
I mean, it's fucking Yemen that's the only state on the Arab Penninsula that has actually taken up a sword in defense of Palestine. Yemen which faced a decade long genocidal campaign from the US via the US's saudi proxies, all to sell more missiles and run a proxy war against Iran.
Both Saudi and Israel are vital components of the US's proxy war with Iran, both are major arms buyers. Both are at war with yemen ffs!
I feel like there is a sort of cycle in European history like this. European Jewry often had a sort of separate status under the ruling circles when the closest thing that most people had to "citizenship" was through the church. On that guest pass they often did a lot of the dirty work for the oligarchy through mutually beneficial schemes, like the arenda system, and as unrest rose periodically were often scapegoated and separated from their cut.
Cynically, there is a sort of equilibrium to this for the upper class. This is shaping up to be a prime time to scapegoat the inevitable crash as a result of geopolitical blunder. But you're not supposed to hate Jews until they tell you to.
Zionism and genocide are symptoms of late stage capitalism. Shifting focus to the big picture can get these people back on track. "Zionism, the british ruling class and the american MIC are all parts of the same monster, none of them are 'owned' by the other just like your foot doesn't own your liver"
Most leftists need to step back and "understand" less theory. They lack the capacity to properly understand all the complexities of Marxist theory. We cant all be geniuses. I'll never really understand the formulae for understanding Rate of Profit outlined in Kapital and that is ok. We don't need to understand particle physics just to flip a light switch. Most leftists only need to know "there are 2 classes the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and if you aren't on one side you are on the other." 99% of us don't need to be concerned about the power dynamics between different parts of the bourgeoise and trying to do so is a waste of effort.
Literal anti-semitic trope. It's such an analysis free belief. A country with 9 million people that exists solely as a colonial outpost is controlling a country of 330 million and a country of 70 million for whom it acts as a geopolitical attack dog? It's just silly, and completely ignores the international nature of capital and fascism.